Metapragmatic comments on relating across cultures

Pragmatics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyung Hye Kim ◽  
Helen Spencer-Oatey
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Intercultural Interaction ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Intercultural Pragmatics ◽  
Relational Management ◽  
Communication Planning

Abstract This paper analyses postings made by student applicants on Korean online communities about how best to handle interactions with potential future PhD supervisors at UK universities. The questions they posed reveal the lack of relevant contextual information they experienced, especially around the rights and obligations of supervisors. This paper thus analyses students’ metapragmatic comments and argues for greater attention to be paid within interpersonal and intercultural pragmatics to interactional goals and conceptions of role relations, especially the rights and obligations associated with them. The analysis has revealed that background information on role relations is of great importance for relational management and communication planning in high stakes intercultural interaction. This suggests that potential cultural variation in the perceived rights and obligations associated with a given role (in this case, PhD supervisor) and their implications for assessments of role relations are of central concern.

scholarly journals Social context and culture influence judgments of non-Duchenne smiles

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-321
Author(s):  
Shushi Namba ◽  
Magdalena Rychlowska ◽  
Anna Orlowska ◽  
Hillel Aviezer ◽  
Eva G. Krumhuber
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Information ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Contextual Influences ◽  
Basic Emotions ◽  
Cultural Variations ◽  
Emotion Displays ◽  
Positive Feelings ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Duchenne Smiles

Abstract Extant evidence points toward the role of contextual information and related cross-cultural variations in emotion perception, but most of the work to date has focused on judgments of basic emotions. The current research examines how culture and situational context affect the interpretation of emotion displays, i.e. judgments of the extent to which ambiguous smiles communicate happiness versus polite intentions. We hypothesized that smiles associated with contexts implying happiness would be judged as conveying more positive feelings compared to smiles paired with contexts implying politeness or smiles presented without context. In line with existing research on cross-cultural variation in contextual influences, we also expected these effects to be larger in Japan than in the UK. In Study 1, British participants viewed non-Duchenne smiles presented on their own or paired with background scenes implying happiness or the need to be polite. Compared to face-only stimuli, happy contexts made smiles appear more genuine, whereas polite contexts led smiles to be seen as less genuine. Study 2 replicated this result using verbal vignettes, showing a similar pattern of contextual effects among British and Japanese participants. However, while the effects of vignettes describing happy situations was comparable in both cultures, the influence of vignettes describing polite situations was stronger in Japan than the UK. Together, the findings document the importance of context information in judging smile expressions and highlight the need to investigate how culture moderates such influences.

scholarly journals CROSS CULTURAL VARIATION OF QUESTIONING IN NEWS INTERVIEWS – A CASE OF POST-QUESTION ELABORATION IN CHINESE NEWS INTERVIEWS

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Hongqiang Zhu ◽  
Tong Chen
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Chinese Context ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Media Discourse Analysis ◽  
News Interviews ◽  
Formal Features

Questioning practice in news interviews has long been a central concern in the current studies of media discourse analysis in terms of its role in maintaining journalistic neutralism. Questions are usually structured into two forms: simple and complex one. In western news interviews, prefatory statements in complex questions are suffi ciently examined in previous studies. Drawing on Conversation Analysis as methodology, this paper examines the questioning practice of English news interviews (i.e., Dialogue) aired in Chinese context and captures the post-question elaboration as a noticeable variant particularity in questioning practice in Chinese news interviews. Post-question elaborations are recognized in terms of the formal features in question design and their functions in the interviewer-interviewee interaction and further categorized into three types: fi rst, post-question elaboration being evaded; second, post-question elaboration being answered along with the question; third, post-question elaboration being answered with question itself being evaded. This analysis reveals that post-question elaborations appear mostly to be associated with the informational contents negatively implicated in the question design and serve not only to contextualize the question itself but also to justify the act of questioning on the part of the interviewer.

The cultural interaction in the manuals of French as a foreign language

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Cultural Interaction ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Social Culture ◽  
Essential Point ◽  
Intercultural Interaction ◽  
French Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Show

Cultural reflection is the mirror to improve international relations as well as to develop social culture. Our research seeks the meaning of intercultural interaction through the authentic manuals of French Langue Etrange in Iraqi universities. The receiver/transmitter obtains through these manuals a detailed view of the French world such as mores and traditions and the way of life in French. The content of authentic FLE manuals is a reflection of French culture and civilization; through them, the student gets knowledge of the history of France. The authentic FLE manuals that we used in this research show us the progress of France from the old centuries till today. We find in Le Nouveau Sans Frontières a glance of the events from the beginning of the centuries before the Christian Jesus, and the contemporary life of the French families as a mirror of the French culture in detail is the first thing arrives at the head by the title of La France en Direct, also, in G. Mauger we observe the cultural variation reflected by the individuals traveling to another place where the culture is very different from that of his country. The person will know other cultures so he is capable to announce his own culture. This shows us the interculturality is the essential point in the content of authentic FLE manuals in our universities which allow the student a chance to discover and know another culture which is different. Keyword: Cultural interaction, education, authentic manual, social context, sender/ receiver

The Impact of Accompanying Text on Visual Processing and Hedonic Evaluation of Art

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fen Lin ◽  
Mike Yao
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
Hedonic Evaluation ◽  
Tracking Device ◽  
Visual Gaze ◽  
Sociological Studies ◽  
The Impact

This study explores how accompanying text affects the way an individual views and interprets a painting. We randomly assigned participants to view 20 paintings from the classical era with factual information, contextualized background information, or no information displayed next to them. We then recorded their visual gaze using an eye-tracking device and asked them to evaluate the paintings. The results show that how people view a painting and how they evaluate a painting are two distinct cognitive processes. The contextual information serves to orient the viewing process. The accompanying text influences the visual attention and gaze pattern but has limited impact on the hedonic evaluation of paintings. Instead, hedonic evaluation is more of a taste acquired through education and socialization. This study offers an empirical footnote to discussions on the cognitive assumptions in sociological studies of art and cultural phenomena.

scholarly journals The right contextual information determining the success of communication on translation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zera Zu
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Background Information ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Right ◽  
Provide Background Information

As relevance theory shows, the success of communication crucially depends on the right contextual information being highly accessible at the right time. Thus it is not sufficient that this information is physically available somewhere in the receptor language; to become effective for comprehension it must be highly accessible mentally to the reader or hearer at the time when it is needed. Thus while it is true in a general way that the translation of Old Testament portions is important because they provide background information necessary for understanding the New Testament, for it to be profitable for the comprehension of a particular New Testament passage, readers must be able to access in their minds just those pieces of information from the Old Testament that are relevant to this specific passage.

Background on Context-Aware Computing Systems

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Amina HAMEURLAINE ◽  
Samiha Brahimi
Keyword(s):  
Pervasive Computing ◽  
Context Awareness ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Context Aware ◽  
Ubiquitous Healthcare ◽  
Computing Systems ◽  
Context Aware Computing ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Application Adaptation

This chapter is consecrated to provide background information that encompass the basic concepts of context-aware pervasive computing systems. The major challenges that researchers need to consider when conducting research in context-aware pervasive computing systems and the most interesting approaches that can be used in order to deal with these challenges are reviewed. This chapter describes also the basic design principles of context-aware pervasive systems and depicts different models for representing and reasoning upon contextual information and an overview of the most known development frameworks of context-aware systems and application adaptation is presented too. Moreover, this chapter describes the usefulness of using context-awareness in ubiquitous healthcare domain and the major challenges in using context-awareness in this domain. The well-known works that have been proposed in the field of Ubiquitous healthcare are discussed too.

scholarly journals Knowledge Graphs Representation for Event-Related E-News Articles

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 802-818
Author(s):  
M.V.P.T. Lakshika ◽  
H.A. Caldera
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Representation ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Knowledge Graph ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Text Documents ◽  
Precise Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Graphs ◽  
News Corpus ◽  
Constructing Knowledge

E-newspaper readers are overloaded with massive texts on e-news articles, and they usually mislead the reader who reads and understands information. Thus, there is an urgent need for a technology that can automatically represent the gist of these e-news articles more quickly. Currently, popular machine learning approaches have greatly improved presentation accuracy compared to traditional methods, but they cannot be accommodated with the contextual information to acquire higher-level abstraction. Recent research efforts in knowledge representation using graph approaches are neither user-driven nor flexible to deviations in the data. Thus, there is a striking concentration on constructing knowledge graphs by combining the background information related to the subjects in text documents. We propose an enhanced representation of a scalable knowledge graph by automatically extracting the information from the corpus of e-news articles and determine whether a knowledge graph can be used as an efficient application in analyzing and generating knowledge representation from the extracted e-news corpus. This knowledge graph consists of a knowledge base built using triples that automatically produce knowledge representation from e-news articles. Inclusively, it has been observed that the proposed knowledge graph generates a comprehensive and precise knowledge representation for the corpus of e-news articles.

Memorandum on the Use of Information Technology to Improve Medication Safety

2014 ◽  
Vol 53 (05) ◽  
pp. 336-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.-F. Aly ◽  
T. Bürkle ◽  
P. Christ ◽  
H. Dormann ◽  
W. Friesdorf ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Information Technology ◽  
Medication Safety ◽  
Information Quality ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Future Research ◽  
It Usage

Summary Background: Information technology in health care has a clear potential to improve the quality and efficiency of health care, especially in the area of medication processes. On the other hand, existing studies show possible adverse effects on patient safety when IT for medication-related processes is developed, introduced or used inappropriately. Objectives: To summarize definitions and observations on IT usage in pharmacotherapy and to derive recommendations and future research priorities for decision makers and domain experts. Methods: This memorandum was developed in a consensus-based iterative process that included workshops and e-mail discussions among 21 experts coordinated by the Drug Information Systems Working Group of the German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS). Results: The recommendations address, among other things, a stepwise and comprehensive strategy for IT usage in medication processes, the integration of contextual information for alert generation, the involvement of patients, the semantic integration of information resources, usability and adaptability of IT solutions, and the need for their continuous evaluation. Conclusion: Information technology can help to improve medication safety. However, challenges remain regarding access to information, quality of information, and measurable benefits.

scholarly journals Stories behind the News; Designing an Advanced App for Journalistic Background Information

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-128
Author(s):  
Jan Bierhoff ◽  
Sander Kruitwagen
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Information ◽  
Content Delivery ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Tablet Computers ◽  
Breaking News ◽  
News Magazine ◽  
Delivery Platform ◽  
The Media ◽  
Innovation Contest

Meanwhile, there is a consensus in the media industry: online will become the prime content delivery platform. Major contributions have already been made at the level of breaking news, but the digital configuration of more complex, contextual information is still lagging behind. With this given in mind, the R&D outlet Medialynx developed a concept for the management of complex background information in a visually attractive way, specifically for display on tablet computers. Together with design agency Essense and the leading Dutch news magazine Elsevier, Medialynx was one of the winners of the 2012 IPI/Google News Innovation Contest, and could on the basis of this grant proceed with the realisation and testing of the concept, initially coined as the Reading Radar. In this research brief, the team presents an inventory of the efforts to further develop the Reading Radar formula into a fully operational prototype and ultimately a launch-ready media service.

Exploring the Limits of Modularity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merrill F. Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Basic Sentence

Psycholinguistic studies of language processing have revolved historically around “modular” and “interactive” accounts of language use. Experimental reports diverge in claims for the penetration of non-linguistic background information on processing for sentence comprehension. Syntactic processing effects can persist despite available contextual constraints that are sufficient to resolve temporary ambiguity or garden path errors. Nevertheless, there are multiple reports of interactive effects between basic sentence processing and both semantic and non-linguistic contextual information. The chapter suggests a rationalization of such conflicting findings in standard psycholinguistic and experimental pragmatic research, relying on interactions between language comprehension systems and language production systems. Production processes are designed to incorporate discourse and environmental constraints on linguistic formulation. These may be used to filter the products of comprehension mechanisms. A key feature of the argument for complementary roles of the two systems is a degree of modular processing for syntax to be found in both systems.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document